It was the 13-year-old from Oalthe, Kansas who took the title of the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee last night in Washington D.C. Kavya Shivashankar, in her fourth appearance, bested the field of the nations top 11 finalists to win the coveted trophy and $40,000 in cash prizes.
Kavya’s winning word was Laodicean, which she methodically spelled out in her hand with her right index finger. It means ‘indifferent or lukewarm’. It might have been only slightly harder to spell than her own last name. Her father Mirle Shivashankar, mother Sandy, and younger sister Vanya were all on hand to witness her victory. Her previous finishes were 10th, 8th and 4th.
The teenager aspires to became a neurosurgeon. Kavya opted not to celebrate her birthday last week because she was in the final stages of preparation for the spelling bee. Her father said, “This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. We haven’t skipped meals, we haven’t lost sleep, but we’ve skipped alot of social time.”
What will Kavya do now that she has achieved her spelling goal? She may enter the ‘Brain Bee’, a science oriented contest. The well rounded teen plays the violin, and enjoying riding her bike and swimming.
Second place finisher and the youngest finalist was a fair-haired lad named Tim Ruiter of Centreville, Virginia. In his first year of competition, he misspelled Maecenas, which means ‘cultural benefactor’. He hopes to attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study physics and chemistry.
Check out another photo below.